Behind the Stage
by Kelsey
Summary: Behind everything that we see, there is always something else going on. What might have been happening between Harry and Draco during CoS, PoA, GoF and OotP. HD slash.


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Behind the Stage

by

Kelsey

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Disclaimer: Not mine. JKR doesn't even know I exist.

Author's Note: This is my try at making Harry/Draco plausible. What might go on behind the obvious actions throughout CoS, PoA, GoF and OotP.

Rating: R

Summary: There's always something going on behind the obvious. What Harry and Draco might be doing when nobody's watching during their second, third, fourth and fifth years. H/D slash.

Warning: This does start when they are twelve. There is no sex in it, however.

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Harry doesn't know what to do as Draco Malfoy pulls him into a sort of tiny alcove at the side of the corridor on the way to Potions. Ron and Hermione have gone ahead, since he was taking so long to get done with breakfast, and though Neville, Seamus and Dean were following him, he knows they're too far behind to have seen the tiny pale hand reach out and snare his robes in a surprisingly tight grip.

He's slightly off balance now, since Malfoy's pull made him stumble and step out with one foot while leaning to his right, in an effort not to fall. Malfoy lets go of him as soon as he is safely out of view, and Harry is forced to right himself. He considers simply stepping out of the tiny space they're sharing and back into the corridor, but his pride and anger force him to stay.

"What do you want?" He asks angrily.

There's a twinkle in Malfoy's eyes, and Harry knows that the self-proclaimed prince of Slytherin isn't stupid, yet it's always a surprise to see that intelligence in the blue-gray depths. Perhaps because he never thought anyone possessing any kind of intelligence could be as cruel as Malfoy is.

"Oh, nothing more than the pleasure of your company, Potty."

Harry's hackles rise at the nickname and he glares. "Do you want something or not, Malfoy?"

Malfoy looks him up and down once, unhurriedly. "Perhaps."

"We're going to be late to Potions," Harry remarks, with a strange kind of detached calm.

Malfoy smirks. "It's not like Snape's going to give _me_ detention."

Sometimes Harry wonders exactly who Malfoy's father is, that his is entitled to so many privileges. He doesn't know yet that he'll find out, and after he does, he'll wish he _didn't_ know.

A huff, then Harry decides that since he's already late, he might as well find out what Malfoy wants from him. "You didn't answer me."

An eyebrow raises. "What do I want? Oh. It's quite simple."

Another quick exhale of breath, frustrated. "Then why won't you _tell_ me?" Absently, Harry realizes that this is the most civilized conversation he's ever had with Malfoy. Though he's not really sure if it counts as a conversation, since it's really him asking one question and Malfoy constantly evading it.

The avoid-er in question looked at him like he was just a little more stupid than your average dung beetle. "Because I wasn't ready."

Harry decides to not ask why he wasn't ready before, and in an effort to save himself more exasperation, skips right to the point. "So you're ready now?"

"Yes." Malfoy is totally unruffled by his frustration.

"Then tell me!" Harry's voice has been getting louder since the beginning, and he's now almost shouting.

"Oh, it's not something I can tell you."

Harry rolls his eyes, stomps his foot and turns to walk away. It's time he gives up on unraveling whatever fact Malfoy is using to play with him, and gets to his inevitable loss of points and detention from Snape.

The same tiny hand closes over his sleeve and pulls him back again. "Wha-"

Turned around quickly, Harry is cut off by the descent of Malfoy's mouth onto his. 

It's Harry's first kiss, and he's not really sure if it's good or not. It's not exactly bad, so he supposes that is something, and definitely more than is to be expected with one's mortal enemy. It's a little wet, because Malfoy has licked his lips, and a little sticky, because Harry's are dry, and over pretty quickly.

And Harry is so shocked that he can't and doesn't say anything as Malfoy scrambles away, suddenly unsure of himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry gets to Potions ten minutes late, thanks to Malfoy's little exhibition, and Snape stalks over to take off points, as expected. He loses twenty points, which is more than he expected, but gets off without detention. His temper flares a little as Malfoy slinks in thirty seconds after him and escapes without _either_ because Snape pretends not to notice, but he's really still too shocked to care much.

Malfoy, too, appears a little befuddled for the first few minutes of class, but recovers quickly, his temper snapping and his tongue lashing within five minutes. Harry takes a bit longer, and is still spacing out and wondering what the hell that was about when Ron and Hermione rouse him to go to their next class. Ron asks what's wrong, but Harry shrugs him off and they leave him alone for a while.

Making a conscientious effort, Harry is able to pull himself together by lunch, and his momentary brain-lapse is instantly forgotten by his friends. Of course, the incident that inspired it requires much more thought, but Harry is aware that if he keeps acting strangely, his friends are going to get suspicious. Trying to avoid that, he shoves it as far away into the back of his mind as he can, and makes plans to pull it out when he has some free time later.

Malfoy, for his part, acts exactly like he always does. He doesn't incite anything, but that's not particularly unusual, because despite their deep-seated dislike of one another, Harry and Malfoy don't fight _every_ day. He sneers at Ron as they go by, and one of his cronies mumbles something that sounds kind of like "Mudblood" at Hermione, and everyone is satisfied that he's being his usual self.

That evening, when everyone is in their beds, and most of the dorm is asleep, Harry takes his invisibility cloak and leaves the tower to wander. He can't hold still, his thoughts are racing and his body wants to move. He knows that f he moves too much in the tower, he'll wake all of his housemates up, so he leaves the area.

Filch and Mrs. Norris are easily evaded, and Harry walks quietly around the grounds for almost three-quarters of an hour before he is tired enough and the incident run enough times through his mind for him to sleep. He trudges slowly back towards Gryffindor tower, his exhaustion weighing down his feet, and collapses into his bed when he arrives. Sleep comes instantly, and if he dreams, he doesn't remember.

In the morning, he wakes up feeling strange, but can't remember why. It takes a few moments for the sleep to clear from his head sufficiently for him to remember the kiss, and he raises a finger to trace his lips absently. Ron gives him an odd look.

"You okay, mate?"

Harry snatches his finger away and nods. "Fine." He looks at his clock. "We'd better get going, or we'll be late to breakfast." Luckily, food is always a good distraction for Ron.

This time, they're on break between Transfiguration and History of Magic when the hand reaches out for Harry. He stumbles a little less than last time, and glares at Malfoy as he rights himself inside the tiny space. In a year or two, it will be much too small for them.

"Can I kiss you?"

Malfoy looks a little nervous, and it boosts Harry's courage. He raises his eyebrows. "Now you ask?" His tone shows his amusement.

The sharp, angular face of his enemy goes from slightly anxious to pissed off in a split second, and Harry thinks the biting tongue that Malfoy is so famous for is going to make a quick appearance. Instead, however, Malfoy composes his features and tries to appear utterly relaxed. "Was afraid you'd run away," he drawls.

"And you're not afraid of that now?" Harry doesn't quite understand how he's having this conversation with the boy who used to be (still is?) his most hated enemy next to Voldemort, but it's oddly intriguing.

Malfoy shrugs. "You didn't scream or hex me or anything yesterday."

No, he didn't. And Harry _could_ tell Malfoy that was only because he was so shocked by his disgusting actions, but for some reason he chooses not to. "I guess I didn't."

A foot taps impatiently on the ground, and Malfoy runs a hand down Harry's skinny chest. "So, can I?"

"You want to kiss me?" Harry's still confused about why _anyone_ would want to kiss him, much less Malfoy, and he just can't quite wrap his head around this. "Why?"

An exasperated sigh escapes Malfoy's lips. "I don't know. Maybe because you're cute. Maybe because you're famous. Maybe just because I want to. And Malfoys always take what they want." He smirks, looking a little more like his usual self.

"But you _hate_ me."

"True."

Harry rolls his eyes, not understanding this at all, and deciding it's time to give up trying, nods his head once. "Okay."

Malfoy leans in and touches his lips to the other boy's softly, leaning slightly to the side so that their noses don't bump. Harry wonders idly if Malfoy's done this before, if he's kissed people other than Harry, but really, he doesn't much care.

It lasts longer this time, more wet and less sticky because Harry licked his lips this time, too. They spread their lips against each other, opening and closing a little as they tilt their heads different directions. Harry's heard of French kissing, and while it doesn't sound as repulsive to him as it does to some of his dorm mates, he doesn't think he's ready for it, either, so he's glad when Malfoy keeps his tongue inside his own mouth.

When they pull apart, they look each other in the eye for a few seconds before Harry bolts. 

Harry's only a few moments later for History of Magic, and Professor Binns doesn't even seem to notice, not once pausing in his already-droning lecture. Hermione is madly taking notes and shushes Ron quickly when he tries to ask where Harry was, so Harry shrugs his shoulders and gratefully gives an apologetic grin instead of trying to answer.

This goes on for days. A few seconds, stolen in the privacy of some hideout, always initiated by Malfoy. After the second time, he doesn't bother to ask, and Harry never puts up a fuss except when they're going to be late for class. One day, he point-blank refuses since it would mean being late to Potions, and Malfoy pouts at him. His stomach does a little flip-flop, and he ends up distracted all day. After all, while he's convinced himself that it's alright to experiment with one's enemy, his personal code of ethics won't cave so easily to actually _feeling_ something about said enemy.

The next day, after supper, Harry drags Malfoy into one of the little alcoves. Crabbe and Goyle were with him, and Harry has to stifle his laughter as they look up from the snacks they were devouring five paces down the hall and become instantly perplexed at Malfoy's disappearance. Finally they decide that he must have gone back to the common room without them, and leave, moving with a slow, lumbering gait.

A glare is leveled at Harry, but he laughs silently into his hand for a long moment before composing himself. "Sorry," he gasps out. "Not very bright, are they?"

Malfoy actually appears to relax a little. "No," he admits.

"You're going to have to start going places without them."

A eyebrow raises. "Why?"

Harry flushes a little, and gestures around them. "You know." He can't quite bring himself to mention their little meetings out loud, yet.

Malfoy seems to consider it for a moment. "Alright," he agrees. "Promise not to pull me away if I'm with them, then?"

Harry nods. "Okay." Then he leans in and kisses Malfoy, firmly and with more passion than at the beginning.

Over the week, they have progressed from the almost-dry, chaste kiss that started this all, to open mouths and more passion than Harry was aware he knew how to feel. He doesn't want Malfoy's tongue inside his mouth, yet, and he hasn't tried to put his into Malfoy's mouth, but he loves the added sensation of the teasing flesh on his lips. Their formerly stationary hands have remained on waists and shoulders and backs, but their grips are no longer tentative, now strong and determined.

And when they break apart, they are breathless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry had realized about three days after the initial kiss that this meant he liked boys. Uncle Vernon's homophobic ranting immediately came to the forefront of his mind and he had cursed himself for being so stupid and not realizing what he was doing was wrong earlier, and then he checked himself and thought about what he'd just thought.

Uncle Vernon had been wrong about a lot of things, hadn't he? He'd been wrong about magic, and about his parents, and Harry was pretty sure that he was also wrong about his neighbors being the spawn of Satan, just because they had five black cats. He also remembered when two men lived in the house across the street for a brief few months, and were occasionally seen kissing in the driveway or through the window, and how he and Dudley had been warned to stay away or risk a spanking. But Harry remembered the feelings that had been so clear between those two men, whose names he'd never learned, and he also remembered wondering what was so wrong about it.

So, he'd asked Seamus his opinion.

He hadn't asked Ron, because Ron was too close. Ron would ask a lot of questions, and Harry would have to be around him all the time, and it just wouldn't have worked. He didn't ask Neville for obvious reasons, and he didn't ask Dean because Dean had grown up in a Muggle home. He had, however, ended up getting Dean's opinion anyway.

He and Seamus had sat down in his room, Harry incredibly nervous. He had had no intention of outing himself to the other wizard, but he'd assumed that was pretty much going to be assumed, and been more than a little anxious about the boy's reaction. So he'd just waded in, both feet first.

"What do you think about gay people?" he'd asked.

Seamus had looked at him for a long moment in which Harry had felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest, and then the other boy had shrugged. "I don't care."

"You don't think it's… wrong?"

"No. Do you?"

"My aunt and uncle said it was…"

Dean, who had appeared unnoticed in the doorway a few moments earlier, had spoken up softly then and nearly scared Harry to death. "Some Muggles do."

After Harry have jumped and turned around quickly, Dean had wandered over and Harry had settled down facing both boys on his bed. "So your parents do?"

Dean had shaken his head. "No. My mum's best friend is gay. I call him and his boyfriend Uncle Sean and Uncle Andrew. I see them a lot more often than my real uncles."

They had talked for a while, and Harry had come away satisfied that he wasn't completely abnormal, and that his friends wouldn't abandon him just because he might be gay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Malfoy pulls back from Harry, panting. Expecting him to withdraw, Harry closes his eyes and tries to breathe.

Something touches his forehead, and he opens his eyes to find himself looking into Malfoy's gray-blue ones at a distance of barely two inches. There's a strange expression in the depths of the other boy's gaze, and he explores Malfoy's eyes for a few long moments, until he pulls away.

Holding his gaze a moment longer, Malfoy then averts his eyes to look at the stone to the left of Harry's head. "I think you should call me Draco."

In truth, they don't usually call each other much of anything. It isn't like they are friends, and in their tiny meeting places, their lips speak more of touching than of names or conversations. But Harry understands, it's the principle of the thing, and he reaches out to trace a hand over Malfoy's cheek while nodding once in agreement. "Okay."

Sometime in January, four or five months after this started, a few short moments of kissing turns into make-out sessions. Ron and Hermione are so used to his disappearances by now that they let the increasing time slide. Plus, the messages about the Chamber have started showing up, and their research into it and the Polyjuice potion keep them busy a lot of the time.

The break of the summer seems almost unbearable. Harry tells himself that it's only kissing, only experimenting. Nothing he should be _missing_. But he is, just the same, and despite the requisite name-calling and posturing he goes through with him, he's glad to see Draco again in the fall.

Their first meeting of the year is just like their last-- there's no awkwardness, no talking. Just lips and tongue and a little bit of roving hands.

In March of that year, Draco shocks the hell out of Harry.

"I think we should have sex."

Harry pulls away quickly, his eyes widening. "What?!"

Draco repeats himself, slower. " I. Think. We. Should. Have. Sex."

Unable to pull anything else coherent out of his head, Harry asks "Why?" in a slightly squeaky voice that he wishes didn't crack.

The blond head bobs as its owner shrugs. "Because I want to."

"We're thirteen, Draco."

"Do you jerk off?"

"Draco!"

"Well, do you?"

Mortified, Harry stares at the wall beside Draco's head. "Yes."

"And the parts all work?"

Indignation takes over embarrassment. "The parts all work just fine! It's not only about the physical, you know."

"It could be."

A long silence falls on the air between them.

"Do you not want me?" Draco's voice betrays none of the hurt that Harry can see in his expressive eyes.

"It's not that." It really isn't. Harry spends a lot of time thinking about him, Draco, and sex. And it's a good thought. But it's also a scary thought, a thought that makes him hard as steel and also about as scared as Ron is of spiders.

"Are you going to tell me we're too young?" Malfoy's voice is full of distain for the idea.

"Maybe we are!"

Draco sneers. "I forgot you Gryffindors probably wait until you're twenty."

"And Slytherins, what, routinely get rid of their virginity before puberty?" He can't help the sarcasm.

Honing in scarily on one of Harry's bigger insecurities, Draco smirks. "Afraid if you have sex with me, you'll really be gay?"

"No!" Maybe. But he's not about to tell Malfoy that.

"Wake up, Potter. You like boys."

Harry knows that. But he might like girls, too, after all, how would he know? He hasn't kissed or groped a girl. And if he likes girls too, then maybe he can be normal, and pretend that he doesn't like boys.

One of Draco's hands snakes down Harry's sides and rests on his belt. Harry lets it sit there for a long moment, shaking with indecision, then pushes it off. "No," he gasps, then runs from their secret alcove like he hasn't in months.

He returns to the dorm room shaking like a leaf, and collapses onto the bed face first. He wants Draco, almost desperately, but he's scared. What does he know about sex? That's something _other_ people do. He'd never considered it involving him, not seriously.

Seamus and Dean kindly remove Ron and Neville from the room for him. They're both worried-looking, but they don't try and interfere, and he's going to have to thank them profusely for that, later. They're good friends, even if he doesn't tend to spend a lot of time with them.

Draco pulls him into one of their alcoves the next day and then lets go, quickly. Harry just stares at him, watches as those beautiful gray eyes turn down to the floor under his gaze. "Sorry," mumbles a tiny voice, and Harry knows that Draco apologizes to no one. So he accepts it, and kisses him, and they're back to normal. If there is every anything remotely approaching normal between the two of them.

Harry first notices Cho Chang at the Ravenclaw table near the end of that year. She's sitting facing him, laughing with her friends, totally unaware of his existence. Well, not unaware, since no one is unaware of Harry Potter's existence, but unaware of the person he is, at least. She's beautiful and female, and everything he wishes he wanted. And he does want her, a little. Is curious about what it would be like to kiss her, to touch her. Maybe feel her breasts against his chest. He flushes whenever she goes by.

At the Quidditch World Cup, Harry is pretty sure Lucius Malfoy is among those torturing the Muggles. He flips it over again and again in his head, then dismisses it. It doesn't matter, really, does it? He isn't in love with Draco, he doesn't have a relationship with Draco. He just kisses him. He tries hard to turn his thoughts towards Cho.

Draco is fidgety and even more nasty than usual at the beginning of the year. When he pulls Harry aside, this time into an empty classroom because they've gotten too tall for the alcoves, teeth and tongues clash, and they both come away with sore lips. Because it isn't really as though Draco ever forgets that he dislikes Harry. It's more that when they're alone, they turn that dislike into passion, instead of words and spells. Harry doesn't think Draco hates him, really. But he's conflicted, because he doesn't really like him, either.

The "Potter Stinks" badges hurt. Harry walks out on one of their meetings for the first time in more than a year after that little display, and then two days later, drags Draco into a closet to ravage him over with the built-up emotion. There's been no more talk of sex, but they both come away hard more and more often.

Lucius Malfoy is present when Voldemort regains his form, and Harry's glad that it's summer, because he can't look at Draco without wanting to shake him and ask him why he's following in his father's steps, lackey-ing for a madman. He confines himself to hexing the Slytherins into oblivion instead.

At the beginning of their fifth year, Draco pulls Harry away into one of the empty classrooms, steaming mad. "What did you do that for?" He hisses. Harry, having not seen him in months, is a bit puzzled.

"Do what?"

"Hex me on the train!"  
Harry looks away. He's not sorry, and if he's going to try and lie, Draco can't be able to see his eyes. "Sorry."

"No, you're not."

The black hair lifts as Harry raises his head. "No. I'm really not."

"So why'd you do it?!"

"Because your father helped raise Voldemort that night, Malfoy!" They return to surnames in their anger frequently, but this time the name has a little extra bite to it that they can both hear.

Malfoy flinches, and the movement surprises Harry, who assumed that Malfoy knew all about his father's involvement with the Death Eaters. "You didn't know?"

The blond head shakes slowly. "Not really. I mean, he didn't tell me."

"But you knew."

"I suspected."

Harry moves, as though to leave, and Malfoy grabs his arm. "Why does this have to stop?" He looks young, much more childlike than he usually does prowling the halls with his guard of Slytherin cronies.

"Because I can't kiss somebody I hate."

Something flashes across the other boy's face. "I do."

Harry shakes his head. "I don't think you hate me."

"I hate that you're helping the Mudbloods."

"But you don't hate me, do you?"

Draco doesn't answer, and Harry leaves.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are no more meetings that year, and Draco seems to have decided that means he might as well devote himself to being his father's perfect son. Harry watches from a distance as he makes his future path clear, but he never interferes. He's always known Draco is going to follow in his father's footsteps. He only had to try and keep him from them, and he's tried.

Harry attempts to date Cho, and it goes to hell. The odd thing is, he can't really bring himself to care. He tells himself that it's only because there are so many more important things going on right then, and he can't devote any of his brain to worrying about girls.

Oddly enough, there's still enough brain to devote to worrying about certain boys.

When Sirius dies, Harry returns to school with a heavy heart and of all the people he wishes would be blind to his pain, Draco Malfoy notices. Wandering the halls has become his new habit, and one night near curfew, a hand reaches out for him from an alcove he remembers well. The hand is larger now, stronger and more muscled, but thin-fingered and with neat, white-tipped nails. A Malfoy hand.

There isn't room for them to stand inside the tiny stone cave anymore, and Malfoy sits on the floor. Out of discomfort, Harry joins him, the space so small that their knees press against each other. "What do you want?"

"To talk to you, Potter."

Harry stares at him dully. "I got that. What about?"

"Why you hate me."

Harry snorts. "Gee. Your father calls the _thing_ who killed my parents and tried to kill me "Master." I wonder why I could possibly hate you."

Malfoy's eyes flash. "I'm not my father."

Black hair falls in his eyes as Harry shakes his head. "No. You're not." He pauses. "You could be much worse."

A puzzled expression crosses Malfoy's face, displacing the previous anger, and Harry sighs. "Your father is a lackey, Malfoy. A smart lackey, but a lackey. Go there, do this, Voldemort says, he does it."

Looking across the room, trying to feign disinterest, he continues. "You're bright. Cunning, ambitious, everything Slytherin looks for. You wouldn't be a lackey. You'd be a partner, and you could be so much worse than your father."

"I'm not my father!"

"You already said that."

"Well, I'm not." Malfoy's face is more open then Harry's used to seeing it, after having stopped their little meetings, and he's not quite sure what to make of the expression on it.

"I never thought you wanted anything but to be," he says.

"I never did, either," Malfoy admits. "But Voldemort doesn't have partners, and I won't bow and kiss the robes of that dead thing."

"What will you do, then?"

Malfoy shrugs, looking uncomfortable. "Not sure. Since my father's in Azkaban, I suppose I don't have to decide for a while."

Harry shakes his head. "Make up your mind, Malfoy. You don't want to have to decide who to fight for when you're in the middle of a battle." He stands up and dusts off his rear end, crouched over in the tiny space.

"See you next year," Malfoy murmurs, and Harry looks over at him. There's a sort of soft emotion in his eyes that Harry isn't used to seeing, and maybe there's hope for the younger Malfoy yet.

He nods and leaves.

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End file.
